Alive
by insaneprincess
Summary: ONE-SHOT. Songfic. Bella's unwritten thoughts before jumping off the cliff. "Dead. It seemed a fitting word. Part of me had died, after all. Why shouldn’t I be dead?... Why couldn’t I be dead?"


Disclaimer: I would die to own Twilight. I also don't own the song 'Alive' by Melissa O'neil. No copyright infringement is intended.

A/N: Just a short song fic on Bella's unwritten thoguhts before she throws herself off the cliff in New Moon. 

PLEASE REVIEW!:)

Alive

Dead.

It seemed a fitting word. Part of me had died, after all. Why shouldn't I be dead?

Why couldn't I be dead?

I couldn't feel that way anymore, though. No matter how I wanted it. And sometimes, I did want it.

But mostly, the change was better. Yes, the pain intensified, but so did the good. I hadn't spoken, or interacted at all in months. How did this happen?

And here I was, almost normal. As though there had never been those exceptional days of my life.

This was how my life would have ended up without him.

_Stuck in a world  
No longer turning  
Always the girl  
Waiting for something  
Too many days  
Walking around sleepin'  
Open my eyes, I'm tired of dreamin'_

My life had been frozen more than his. There had been no point. It was as though the entire planet took a deep breath when he said those fateful words.

_"I don't want you to come with me."_

And he'd broken me with them, doing more damage than any weapon of mass destruction. My love for him _was_ a weapon of mass destruction.

And I couldn't feel, couldn't think, couldn't exist, after that. There was no point to my existence if he wasn't there.

So I'd become numb.

And I was almost thankful that I wasn't anymore.

I had practically been in a coma. I would have spoken more if I was asleep. I almost was.

Everyone gave up on speaking to me. I was lethargic. People probably thought I was on drugs. I couldn't move right, couldn't speak right, and couldn't breathe right. This wasn't my life.

It was stupid. I never consciously accepted the hope, or even the idea of hope. It was stupid and pointless. He wasn't coming back.

But there was that part of me that waited patiently for him to return. That insisted that he loved me – he'd said I was his life. Didn't that mean anything?

Apparently not.

It had to me. It had been everything. I had risked my life for him.

Which brought me to here.

_I wanna run with the reckless emotion  
Find out if love is the size of an ocean  
Even if I crash down and burn out  
At least I'm gonna know what it's like  
To feel alive_ 

I was risking my life to hear his voice.

Insanity. But when had I ever been sane?

I wanted this. I wanted to break promises and _feel_ something again. And if it took being stupid and reckless, then I would do it. I would do anything to hear his voice.

I craved the adrenaline. I breathed it.

I didn't care about the pain – both physical and mental. I was already mental, and I was so clumsy I was practically disabled. Bruises were sort of normal.

I wondered what someone would think if they just watched my life. Would they think it was crazy, too?

But it wasn't, not really. No one else could know, because no one else had been loved by him. No one else knew how consuming that love was, how obsessive it was. How it changed me from a shy, introverted, cautious girl, into someone who was reckless and brave and jumped into things headfirst.

And here I was, ready to jump again. Except, this time, it wasn't figuratively.

_Sun on my face  
Lights of the city  
Maybe in love or just learning to be  
On my two feet  
I can only imagine  
I'll say the words  
And believe it'll happen_

The sun had been shining before, but the storm was taking over now. I would have to jump soon.

The bitter, frigid wind hit me, but it didn't feel harsh. It felt, instead, like familiar cold arms, holding me up. 

I looked down the enormous cliff at the water below.

Something more reckless or stupid than the others, I thought with pleasure. I stood, entirely at peace, with my feet together, ready to leap out into the abyss, and let gravity take me. It seemed too easy.

La Push glowed behind me, maybe a mile away. But I didn't care. I would be done soon.

I was surprised at how peaceful I felt. The tranquility, serenity of the moment, was unexpected. Here I was, standing on the figurative edge of the earth, poised to jump, to let go to my hallucinations, and I felt peaceful.

_I wanna run with the reckless emotion  
Find out if love is the size of an ocean  
Even if I crash down and burn out  
At least I'm gonna know what it's like  
To feel alive_

I needed these illusions though. I stalked them, but it was necessary. I was addicted to them. Maybe I had been his heroin, but his soft, sweet voice was my addiction.

And they still hurt. They could kill me when they were over. Just like drugs – there were the indescribable highs, and the impossible lows. But I craved them anyway.

I was real because of them. Sure, Jacob had picked up the pieces, but I would never be whole again. And the hallucinations made him a fraction more real. Because sometimes I had to wonder if it had all been a crazy, impossible dream. Surely there had never been someone so perfect.

Maybe it had been a dream.

It wasn't. Sometimes I wished it was. It would be so much easier to erase if it really never happened. Just an exceptionally realistic, beautiful, impossible dream.

It wasn't.

I looked at the cliff beneath me. I needed this. It was my way of erasing. Never really letting go. I couldn't if I tried. I _had_ tried.

But why should I let go? Couldn't I embrace the pain, however sick and twisted that was? The pain made me real. I wasn't an empty shell with the pain. I was alive.

_They think they know me  
But how can they know me  
I'm getting to know myself  
I'm finally ready to be somebody  
With the story to tell_

The others thought they understood.

Charlie just didn't get it. He left me alone, because he didn't know what to do with an empty, defeated girl. A lifeless zombie.

But he didn't know what to do when I came back to life, either. He thought I was fine now. He thought Jake had cured me. Did he think my life was painless now? Could he really believe I would ever let go of this?

Jacob maybe understood, a little. He knew I was in pain, and a lot. But he didn't get it because he hated the cause of my desperation and desire. He didn't get what it was to feel something so intensely that you felt you could explode. He didn't realize how much it meant to me, or how it had killed me.

Of course, he knew me really well – he understood a lot. He could see how much of a mess I was that first day in La Push, and my slow returning to humanity. But he didn't know the depth of the emotions that I felt. He thought he knew all of it, but if he still had any hope of anything more than friendship (and he definitely had hope), than he didn't know me completely.

Hell, I hardly knew myself.

I was finding myself again. But I didn't know when or if the pain and numbness could overwhelm me again. Could I be sucked under another time?

But I was coming to life. I'd lived through this nightmare. I had that story, that memory, along with all of the infinitely precious ones. It was almost amusing. I could tell someone – if I chose to break the laws – that I had dated a vampire. Of course, they would throw me into an institution, but it was still true.

_I wanna run with the reckless emotion  
Find out if love is the size of an ocean  
Even if I crash down and burn out  
At least I'm gonna know what it's like_

I had done a lot for this. God, I'd nearly killed myself on a motorcycle. I'd talked to random drunk strangers, tempting fate. I'd gone to his house. I would do anything for his voice.

Because the hallucinations were so good while they lasted. They really felt like he was there, whispering in my ear, telling me not to hurt myself. Saying that he cared, more or less. It felt like he was real, and protecting me. It was so realistic; it sounded so much like his voice that it almost hurt while it played out. But I wanted it.

I could almost feel the power of the scorching topaz eyes again while his imagined voice spoke. I never opened my eyes to dispel the illusion. It was too beautiful.

_I wanna feel til' my heart breaks right open  
I wanna blaze like a fire that's burning  
Even if I crash down and burn out  
At least I'm gonna know what it's like  
To feel alive  
_

I didn't care how it would hurt. The hallucinations would break my heart, later, in a thousand miniscule ways. Infinitesimal. But the cracks would add up.

It would burn me worse than any open flame, than even the burning in my hand when James bit me. Because this killed from the inside. Poison.

But I didn't care what this might do to me later. I cared about now. I cared about his voice.

I cared about that beautiful feeling the hallucination would bring.

I cared about feeling like he loved me.

I threw myself off the cliff.

_Ohh, I feel alive..._


End file.
